1983 was the year that saw the Battle of the Bonds. Both Roger Moore and Sean Connery had Bond films come out. Moore’s Octopussy was the first Bond film to come out that year.
009 has been killed in action whilst carrying a fake Fabergé egg. Bond must continue the mission which sees him go to India and Germany to investigate an exiled Afghan prince, Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan) who has ties with a rogue Soviet general.
Roger Moore was set to quit the Bond role and was going to be replaced with James Brolin. However, the competition from the unofficial Bond film was too great so Moore was brought back to reprise his role. It would have been too embarrassing if the official Bond film was beaten by the unofficial contender. From a financial viewpoint it paid off because Octopussy was more successful at the box office than Never Say Never Again.
For Your Eyes Only famously brought Bond back down to Earth after some far-fetched adventures. It was the most grounded and serious film of the Moore era. Octopussy brought back a campy energy. It tried to walk the line between being fun and silly and sadly it leaned too far into the latter.
The filmmakers seemed like they were trying to copy the style of Guy Hamilton and even Hamilton was inconsistent. He made two great Bond films (Goldfinger and Live and Let Die) and two rubbish ones (Diamonds Are Forever and The Man With The Golden Gun).
The issue with Octopussy was the filmmakers tried to put more comedy into the action scenes and it just didn’t work. Most of the comedic action happened in India. During a tuk-tuk chase Bond’s ally, Vijay (tennis player Vijay Amritraj), beat back some henchmen with a tennis racket and the bystanders move their heads like they were watching a tennis match. This was the film that had the infamous moments where Bond did a Tarzan roar and told a tiger to sit like a dog. The climax of the film involved a battle between mercenaries and circus performers whilst Bond and Q were flying around in a Union Jack hot air balloon. One of the henchmen had a buzzsaw yo-yo which seemed like an impractical weapon.
Octopussy felt like an Indiana Jones-style adventure film. Raiders of the Lost Ark was a big hit back in 1981 and the ‘80s saw a lot of copies. Octopussy centred around the world of high art, most of the action was set in India with Khan and Octopussy’s (Maud Adams) bases being palaces and Khan was an exiled prince. These ideas seem more fitting in an adventure film than a spy thriller.
Octopussy had scenes that looked like they influenced the Indiana Jones series. Temple of Doom was set in India and both films had scenes involving unusual Indian delicacies. Whilst The Last Crusade had an action sequence on a circus train, just like Octopussy.
Octopussy had a convoluted scheme for what was a simple villain plot. One of the main villains was General Orlov (Steven Berkoff), a Soviet general who wanted to have a more aggressive policy. Orlov sets out to plant a nuclear bomb on an American airbase in Germany which would force the West to disarm. This scheme required smuggling valuable artifacts out of the Soviet Union and using a travelling circus.
The film really comes to life when it moved to Germany. It became more of a Cold War plot because of the geopolitical consequences. John Glen, who returned to direct, seemed more comfortable with this type of action because there were fewer jokes and there was a literal ticking clock situation. Failure wasn’t an option.
A scene that’s often maligned by Moore’s detractors was when Bond disguised himself as a clown to get the bomb. They say this scene proves that Moore turned Bond into a joke. However, in the context of the film this sequence was really tense because Bond only had seconds to find and disarm the bomb.
The characters in the film were a mixed bag. Berkoff was an over-the-top villain but his plot had an end goal. I would have preferred him to be the main villain. Jourdan as Khan was a smooth operator but the big questions of his character were what was his goal and how would he have benefited? Kabir Bedi as Gobinda was a fun presence because he was a big and intimidating henchman with a menacing stare.
Octopussy was a more glamorous Bond girl. She had some similarities to Pussy Galore from Goldfinger. Both were characters who worked for the bad guys before switching sides and both dressed more practically. However, Octopussy wasn’t as impactful as other Bond girls. That’s despite Octopussy running an all-female cult. Vijay was a presence enough character even if he was a case of stunt casting.
Octopussy was sadly a lesser Bond film. The silliness overshadowed the action and a solid idea for a villain plot was made unnecessarily complicated. It was the beginning of the end of Roger Moore’s era.
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